Ray Brown was born in Houston, Texas, and earned a BFA with Honors from the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi under Matt Long. During the summers, he assisted ceramic artists Chris Gustin in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, and Christopher Spitzmiller in New York City. He then earned an MFA in studio art with an emphasis in ceramics at West Virginia University (WVU), learning under Shoji Satake, Robert “Boomer” Moore, Jen Allen, and Shalya Marsh. He assisted Julia Galloway in Missoula, Montana, as well as helped build a large tube wood kiln on the WVU campus. 
His work has been displayed nationally and internationally in numerous juried shows, with work displayed as far away as Jingdezhen, China, at the Mufei Gallery, where he attended a semester-long residency at the Pottery Workshop. In 2019, he received the Studio Potter Merit Award at NCECA’s National Juried Student Exhibition in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The same year, he was featured in an article on Studio Potter’s website as part of the award. Currently, he is an instructor and ceramic studio technician for the University of Mississippi.